Archive for August, 2010

I’ve never been a fan of guns; I wasn’t raised in a culture where they were lauded, sought after. But I don’t fear guns, either. Or at least I didn’t think I did because I was never around guns: where I come from they can’t just be purchased from the local corner store or where ever it is that you can get them from here in the US (I’m told Wal-Mart has stopped selling them). I jokingly said that I would take hand gun lessons when I moved to Texas – you know, to be like a local. So, off I went to the local gun club (very local, only two minutes down the road!) and the moment I walked in and saw the guns hung up on the walls, heard the bullets popping and witnessed the cool, calm, collected behaviour of the shop attendant my heart leapt into my throat and proceeding to beat at a rate I can’t purposefully achieve with a hard session of cardio at the gym. But I didn’t waiver (Charlton Heston would have been proud, not that I particularly care for him or his pride), I loaded the chamber (I rented a Magnum .38) and fired a single shot at the paper man-target. And that was me done. I spent the rest of the hour taking photos of my braver companions. That’s the kind of shooting I prefer.

I thought that after the ducklings paid me a visit all those months ago I’d had my year’s fill of cute and fluffy. Luckily for us all that proved not to be the case as this weekend, while strolling around the state capital (Austin), I spied a young boy feeding a squirrel. The closer I got the more it became apparent that this cheeky little animal (the squirrel, not the boy) was the least camera-shy creature on the planet. He even had a preferred “side” for the photos and continually turned so his right side faced me! Alas, if it weren’t for my 75-300 mm lens I would never have been able to compose any shots the way I wanted. Here he is, munching on (ironically) an animal cracker.